Postern of Fate (Tommy and Tuppence Series) - Agatha Christie [35]
‘Goodness, that was a long time ago, Tommy. The Young Adventurers we called ourselves. Doesn’t seem real now, does it?’
‘No, it doesn’t. Not a bit. But it was real, yes, it was real all right. Such a lot of things are real though you can’t really bring yourself to believe it. Must be at least sixty or seventy years ago. More than that, even.’
‘What did Monty actually say?’
‘Letters or papers of some kind,’ said Tommy. ‘Something that would have created or did create some great political upheaval of some kind. Someone in a position of power and who oughtn’t to have been in a position of power, and there were letters, or papers, or something that would definitely cook his goose if they ever came to light. All sorts of intrigues and all happening years ago.’
‘In the time of Mary Jordan? It sounds very unlikely,’ said Tuppence. ‘Tommy, you must have gone to sleep in the train coming back, and dreamt all this.’
‘Well, perhaps I did,’ said Tommy. ‘It certainly doesn’t seem likely.’
‘Well, I suppose we might as well have a look around,’ said Tuppence, ‘as we are living here.’
Her eyes passed round the room.
‘I shouldn’t think there would be anything hidden here, do you, Tommy?’
‘It doesn’t seem the sort of house where anything would have been likely to be hidden. Lots of other people have lived in the house since those days.’
‘Yes. Family after family, as far as I can make out. Well, I suppose it might be hidden up in an attic or down in the cellar. Or perhaps buried under the summer-house floor. Anywhere.’
‘Anyway, it’ll be quite fun,’ said Tuppence. ‘Perhaps, you know, when we haven’t got anything else to do and our backs are aching because of planting tulip bulbs, we might have a little sort of look round. You know, just to think. Starting from the point: “If I wanted to hide something, where would I choose to put it, and where would it be likely to remain undiscovered?”’
‘I don’t think anything could remain undiscovered here,’ said Tommy. ‘Not with gardeners and people, you know, tearing up the place, and different families living here, and house agents and everything else.’
‘Well, you never know. It might be in a teapot somewhere.’
Tuppence rose to her feet, went towards the mantelpiece, stood up on a stool and took down a Chinese teapot. She took off the lid and peered inside.
‘Nothing there,’ she said.
‘A most unlikely place,’ said Tommy.
‘Do you think,’ said Tuppence, with a voice that was more hopeful than despondent, ‘that somebody was trying to put an end to me and loosened the glass skylight in the conservatory so that it would fall on me?’
‘Most unlikely,’ said Tommy. ‘It was probably meant to fall on old Isaac.’
‘That’s a disappointing thought,’ said Tuppence. ‘I would like to feel that I had had a great escape.’
‘Well, you’d better be careful of yourself. I shall be careful of you too.’
‘You always fuss over me,’ said Tuppence.
‘It’s very nice of me to do so,’ said Tommy. ‘You should be very pleased to have a husband who fusses about you.’
‘Nobody tried to shoot you in the train or derail it or anything, did they?’ said Tuppence.
‘No,’ said Tommy. ‘But we’d better look at the car brakes before we go out driving next time. Of course this is all completely ridiculous,’ he added.
‘Of course it is,’ said Tuppence. ‘Absolutely ridiculous. All the same–’
‘All the same what?’
‘Well, it’s sort of fun just to think of things like that.’
‘You mean Alexander was killed because he knew something?’ asked Tommy.
‘He knew something about who killed Mary Jordan. It was one of us…’ Tuppence’s face lit up. ‘US,’ she said with emphasis, ‘we’ll have to know just all about US. An “US” here in this house in the past. It’s a crime we’ve got to solve. Go back to the past to solve it–to where it happened and why it happened. That’s a thing we’ve never tried to do before.’
Chapter 5
Methods of Research
‘Where on earth have you been, Tuppence?’ demanded her husband when he returned to the family mansion the following day.
‘Well, last of all I’ve been in the cellar,’ said Tuppence.
‘I can